Research On Representation Of The Elderly In Traditional Media’s Official Micro-blog

With the pace of aging speeding up, different kinds of contradictions and problems related to the elderly have gradually visualized. Meanwhile, the rapid rise of micro-blog has wreaked havoc on the survival and development of traditional media. However it also launched traditional media on the media convergence path. Traditional media’s official micro-blog emerged at a historic moment. As turning to new media for new vigor and vitality, the abundant strength and broad influence accumulated by traditional media has also been brought to the new platform. This thesis takes People’s Daily and CCTV News’ s Official Micro-blogs, which are the most influential traditional media’s official micro-blogs, as examples, and collects 2373 reports related to the elderly and 584 old men from September 1st, 2012 after the appearance of relevant reports in both micro-blogs to December 31 st, 2014 as the content to study.This thesis is divided into 5 chapters. In the first chapter, the author introduces the research background, objective, significance and method. It also summarizes and combines the history and current situation of aging study, aging and communication along with the representation of the elderly.In the second chapter, the author conducts her research on the general situation of reports related to the elderly in three contexts: number, content and timing. We can see the number of reports is increasing, and the content is diversified, while the reporting is gradually becoming a routine thing.Then the next part focuses on analyzing basic information, living condition, character and the activity area of the old men, as well as the nature of matters in reports, finding that the research objects are based on the representation of elderly male citizens who are active in the public domain.In the upcoming chapter, for the controversial news events related to the elderly, such as “falling over” and “offering seats”, combined with the statistic achievements of topic content, news source and assessment of the elderly, We find that moral judgment is the major reporting mode in this type of news. Yet the news source is unitary, to some degree, and the assessments of the elderly are usually focusing more on the positive than the negative.With the above chapters as an overture, the last part of this paper summarizes and reflects the problems of the representation of the elderly in traditional media’s official micro-blog, and then puts forward that the figure of old man should be represented in a comprehensive and objective way, and we need to break through the traditional reporting framework, and accelerate the realization of media convergence.Through this research on representation of the elderly in traditional media’s official micro-blog, the author wants to make the public have a more in-depth understanding and awareness of the elderly. On the other hand, this research might also bring the fields of research on aging and communication, including the representation of the elderly into research community’s vision.